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Polynesian Navigation

Polynesian navigation allowed ancient Polynesians to migrate and explore across thousands of miles of open ocean over thousands of years. They used tools like stick charts to memorize wind and ocean currents between islands, and observed natural phenomena like cloud formations, bird behaviors, and wave patterns to navigate. Modern navigators like Nainoa Thompson have combined traditional Polynesian methods with new tools like the Hawaiian Star Compass. The Treworgy Planetarium is developing new programming to teach about Polynesian navigation and star lore.

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Hartford Courant
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284 views1 page

Polynesian Navigation

Polynesian navigation allowed ancient Polynesians to migrate and explore across thousands of miles of open ocean over thousands of years. They used tools like stick charts to memorize wind and ocean currents between islands, and observed natural phenomena like cloud formations, bird behaviors, and wave patterns to navigate. Modern navigators like Nainoa Thompson have combined traditional Polynesian methods with new tools like the Hawaiian Star Compass. The Treworgy Planetarium is developing new programming to teach about Polynesian navigation and star lore.

Uploaded by

Hartford Courant
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Polynesian Navigation By Jordan Ecker, Museum Educator and Planetarium presenter.

Different groups of people have traveled the oceans for centuries for different reasons. How they navigated from place to place may be different and evolved over time,
but something that unites all these disparate peoples are the stars. People may have used them to navigate, as a calendar, or used them to pass down stories. The stars
were always there on these travels to the unknown. At the Treworgy Planetarium at Mystic Seaport Museum, we focus on navigation in addition to astronomy. Recently, the
Planetarium’s supervisor, Brian Koehler, had the opportunity to learn about a different type of navigation, one that has come into popular culture through a certain Disney heroine
and her adventures with a certain demi-god – Polynesian navigation.

But, where is Polynesia, and what cultures are considered Polynesian? At one point in time,
Polynesia encompassed all of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, but the current geographical and
cultural boundaries are condensed to an area known as the Polynesian Triangle. Hawaii, Easter
Island, and New Zealand create the three points of the triangle. Within the boundaries that those
islands create, there are 12 island groups including Samoa, Tonga, and the Cook Islands.

While these islands are part of different nations, speak different languages, and are separated
by hundreds of miles of ocean, the staff at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii want visitors to think of
Polynesia as “a nation of islands.” Even though Polynesia have numerous different ethnicities (such
as Hawaiian, Maori, and Samoan) and these ethnicities have a history of struggle and conflict,
Polynesians, as a whole, believe that there is more that unites them than divides them.

What unites all these different islands is a history of migration. Thousands of years ago, the ancestors
of the various Polynesian ethnicities all originated on the Malay Peninsula in the modern nation of
Taiwan. Beginning in 5000 BCE, these people who would become Polynesians started migrating Map of Polynesia • Photo credit: public domain
into the Polynesian Triangle. Polynesians continued migrating south and east to the Marquesas,
where some migrated northwest to Hawaii by 300 CE, some continued southeast to Easter Island, and some continued southwest to New Zealand via the Cook Islands by 1000
CE. How did the Polynesians accomplish all this exploration when the sextant and modern celestial navigation were still thousands of years in the future?

During these 6000 years of migration and exploration, the Polynesians used different navigational tools
and methods in tandem to guide their travels. One of the earliest tools was a stick chart, theorized to be
used by the Polynesians on the Marshall Islands. A stick chart is made out of sticks and shells or rocks.
The sticks represent wind patterns and ocean currents, while the shells or rocks illustrate the location of
various islands. There is no scale to show the differences in sizes of the islands, as they are the least
important part of a stick chart. The most important part is actually the routes that the sticks represent
between different islands.

Using bamboo or coconut fronds would allow the sticks to be bent, and create curved lines instead of
straight, which would make the stick chart more accurate. What is interesting about stick charts is that the
Polynesians did not take them on their voyages. They would memorize them before leaving, and leave
the stick charts on their home island. Another main navigation method was observing their surroundings.
One of those observations is called wave piloting. Wave piloting is simply placing a hand just below the
water’s surface as the vessel moves, and deducing patterns in the feel of the waves. When well-practiced,
Polynesian Stick Chart, Bishop Museum collection.
a Polynesian traveler could know where an island was by the changes in the patterns. Wave piloting would
Photo credit: Used with permission from the Bishop Museum.
be combined with observing the cloud shapes, as a certain one, lenticular, forms over mountains. Since
the majority of islands in the Polynesian Triangle are volcanic, then sighting this cloud shape would indicate where a far off island might be located. Also, Polynesian explorers
would observe raptors, or birds of prey, with prey in their talons, and follow them to their nests on land.

While these are the traditional navigation methods that the Polynesians used, other additions have been added over
time. Nainoa Thompson, program director of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, was the first Hawaiian and Polynesian
since the 14th century to use traditional Polynesian navigation methods to navigate from Hawaii to Tahiti on the Hokule’a
in 1980. Thompson has successfully combined traditional navigation knowledge with modern science, and created the
Hawaiian Star Compass.

The Hawaiian Star Compass tracks the location where certain stars rise and set both above and below the horizon.
The compass breaks the horizon into 32 regions –seven for each of the inter-cardinal directions (northeast, northwest,
southeast, and southwest), and the one for each of the cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). The theory
behind it is that, for example, if a person knows that a certain star rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest, then
they can orient themselves. It is important to note that the Hawaiian Star Compass is a concept to be memorized, rather
than a physical tool to take on a voyage.

Given the Treworgy Planetarium’s focus on navigation, the integration of Polynesian navigation will only strengthen
programming. The Planetarium’s supervisor, Brian Koehler, is currently working on a new show based around Polynesian
Hawaiian Star Compass, created by Nainoa Thompson.
navigation and star lore. For more information on the Planetarium’s shows and program offerings, please visit https://
Photo credit: Used with permission from the Polynesian Voyaging Society and
www.mysticseaport.org/explore/planetarium/. Special thanks to Brian Koehler for his help with this article! the Bishop Museum.

To learn how Mystic Seaport’s educational programs meet the


Common Core standards and the CT Social Studies Frameworks,
please see
https://www.mysticseaport.org/learn/k-12-programs/common-core/

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